The Turn of a Friendly Card
by jandl
Summary: AU post 2x18 "The Man From the Other Side." Peter never crosses to Over There, but he never comes back to Boston either. Three years later, he is forced to return to work the case that led to his friend Agent Dunham's death. "The game never ends when your whole world depends on the turn of a friendly card."


**Disclaimer**: Peter Bishop and the other characters of Fringe belong to Bad Robot and Fox. The title of the story is the name of an album by the great super-group of The Alan Parsons Project. Everything other than the title (and the great muse numerous listenings of the album has given me) is my own.

**Spoilers**: through 2x18 "The Man from the Other Side." (To be fair, I don't think that qualifies as a spoiler anymore, but in case someone happens to be watching their way through for the first time...)

**A/N**: I've been writing this story in my head since the episode originally aired back in 2010. For numerous reasons, this story has been put on the back burner many times over the years, but has never left my mind completely. **TO GIVE FAIR WARNING**, what happens at the beginning of the story stays true for the rest of the story. It's not a ruse. So, if the reveal at the beginning of the story puts you off, just know that it's not going to change.

**The Turn of a Friendly Card**

Chapter 1: I Don't Wanna Go Home

"So, what were the winnings for today?" Natalie Nichols asked, situating herself between Peter Bishop and his apartment door, the tantalising silk fabric of her dress sliding across his suit provocatively. Her arms came up around his neck, pulling his slightly taller frame closer to her own and pressing her more firmly against the door. Peter couldn't resist a small smile and reached his left hand up to run it through her black and curly locks, the tips of which fell perfectly down over the low cut bodice of her black dress. Peter Bishop theorised that every female had a "little black dress," and if that was true, then what Natalie was wearing was definitely hers. He wondered passively if she had worn it with the express purpose of giving him a heart attack. Because if so, it was working. In any case, he knew she was intending to seduce him. And that was working too.

"You should know. You were there," he said, moving his lips down to her neck, letting his two day stubble scratch slightly against her sensitive skin like he knew she liked. He knew he got it right when he felt her move her hand up to the back of his head to run her fingers through the hair at the nape of his neck.

"True. But it sounds more adventurous when you tell it. Plus, I had to step away for a few minutes to pick the pocket of that rich old guy at the blackjack table."

"The pervy old one that couldn't keep his eyes off your chest the whole time?"

"Mmhmm." Natalie went quiet for a moment as Peter moved his hand from her waist to the bottom hem of her dress, moving his hand slowly up her thigh in a way he knew frustrated her to no end. After a few seconds, she found her voice again, moving her hands from the back of his head to his arms, creating a small space between them that forced him to remove his hands from her person. "And you're one to talk about pervy men staring at my chest, mister. I seem to recall a certain someone's blue eyes straying to said section of my person at least three times tonight."

"But I'm not old. Plus, I wasn't staring at JUST your chest," Peter said defensively, moving in close to her again. The small red-painted smile on Natalie's lips as she arched her head back in response more than showed her happiness at his statement.

"Oh, really? What else were you looking at?" Her face came closer to his in anticipation of a kiss.

"Well, the legs also looked quite nice. And well…those hazel eyes of yours are stunning."

Peter finally gave in to her beseeching hazel eyes and kissed her, his tongue quickly getting swept away in the familiar haven of her mouth. He swept his tongue across the roof of her mouth in the way she knew she liked and she gave an answering moan and pulled him closer to her, Natalie's back thunking against the door in a way that reverberated down the quiet hotel hallway. His hand returned to her thigh, enjoying the fun spot between indecency and public decorum.

When biology demanded they both come up for air, Natalie placed her hand on the doorway to Peter's door. "Did you want some company tonight? Jason isn't expecting me to check in for another couple of hours."

Peter turned over the proposal in his mind. Natalie was always good for a few hours of fun, and while she worked for gangsters, she was good at taking care of herself. He had been partnered with her for eight months and sleeping with her on and off for seven, and so far he hadn't come to any grief with her bosses or her other fuck buddies. It was a nice switch from the problems he usually came across in his romantic interests. A large portion of him was strongly tempted to take her up on the offer. He had been stuck at the poker table for most of the night, trying to win back some money that he had lost at that same poker table to the same set of people just the day before. While he had won some of it back, he was still very much in the red and it would take about three more good wins before he could break even. He was desperately in need of a distraction. And Natalie Nichols with her dark hair and light eyes and little black dress was a brilliant option.

Unfortunately, he had work to do. And the sooner he got it done, the sooner he could get back to forgetting everything that his work implied.

Peter removed his hand from Natalie's thigh and took a step back, rubbing a hand against the back of his head, dishevelling his hair even more than Natalie's hands had already done. "I'd love to, but I can't. I've got a job I need to work some logistics on."

Natalie licked her swollen lips. Peter immediately regretted choosing work. She smoothed her dress and stepped away from the door. "Is it for Jason, or one of the other guys you work for?"

"If it's not for Jason, you know I can't give you details. But it should just take me the one night. We work the job tomorrow, and then I'm all yours."

"That's a pretty big promise, buddy. Sure you can hold up your end of the bargain? Cos I am expecting some hard-core booze. None of that cheap crap. And I expect to forget all about a certain pervy old man staring at my chest in exchange for a measly two hundred dollars."

"Is that all he had on him? Two hundred?"

"Yeah. With the way I let him feel me up, I had hoped to get at _least_ a grand. I guess he spent all his money on his suits. So, tomorrow night, eh?"

"Tomorrow night," he promised, his con artist smirk making its way across the left side of his face.

"It's a date." She placed a hand on his shoulder as she walked by, and Peter was certain she knew he was staring as she walked away, a nice swagger to her hips brought by the cut of her dress and her kitten-heels.

He bit back a groan and knocked his head against the door, using every ounce of his self-control to resist calling her back and taking her to bed. His biology was telling him that he could lose himself in her for a few hours and then make his scheduled monthly phone call. But he knew it wouldn't happen. He would put the phone call off and then the task would still be waiting for him for days, then weeks, and then maybe months. He had already skipped his last four scheduled check-ins. He _needed_ to make this one before the FBI got suspicious and Broyles actually started checking into where he was. He had been living a life of freedom for three years and he wasn't sure he was ready to return home yet.

He unlocked the door to his hotel apartment and stepped inside the somewhat messy room. Over the six months he had rented the two room suite, he had added some tiny amenities to make it feel a bit more like home. The bed stayed consistently unmade, and the table in the centre always had a bottle of Scotch whisky with two tumblers (one for himself and one for a friend) clean and available in the middle. He had bought a small radio that he kept on top of the courtesy television, set to a soft jazz station. In addition, there were different job files scattered around the room. He had hid them all so that if any of his bosses came to discuss a job, then they wouldn't see the jobs he was doing for other bosses in the city. The current one spread out across his bed was a job he was doing for Natalie's boss Jason – a basic software hijack from a middling technology company basing itself in San Francisco. Still, it would pay a debt he needed to pay and Jason never needed to know just how below average the skill set requirement actually was.

He closed the folder and placed it in his closet, on the storage shelf in the third box down from the top. When that was done, he ducked down to the floor of the closet and lifted up a floorboard he had pried loose on his first day renting the place. Underneath was a small lockbox, which he took out and carried to the centre table. He poured himself a glass of Scotch and stared at the box. He wasn't even sure why he carried the damn thing around with him still. He avoided opening it except for his scheduled calls, and even then it was all he could do to force himself to take out the key and make the call. Something inside of him was always urging him to throw it into a river, the ocean, off a cliff top. But he never did. The lockbox was his burden, which he carried dutifully around with him from job to job and place to place and safe house to safe house.

He grabbed the key from its hiding place where it was taped beneath the table and, with a sigh of relief mixed with frustration, unlocked the lockbox. There were only three items inside: a mobile phone, a photograph, and a pen. He ignored the pen and hastily turned the well-thumbed photograph face down so he couldn't see it. The only item he removed was the phone, which he merely held in his hand and stared at for a few moments.

Taking a swig of the Scotch, he decided to rip the metaphorical plaster off quickly and took the upside-down SIM card out the mobile and placed it right-side in, making the phone power itself up. He waited a minute as the phone logo came up and took a few more shots of the whisky while he waited for the number of voicemails to reveal itself.

"You have three new voicemails," said the familiar computerized voice.

Peter picked up the phone and held it to his ear, awaiting the painful and familiar voices he usually received when he checked his phone every few months.

_First message_:

"Peter, it's Astrid." Peter almost dropped his glass on the floor. In the three years he'd been gone, he had never once had Astrid's voice on his voicemail. In the early days, he would receive quite a few messages from Olivia and quite a few (deleted mid-message) from Walter. After about a year and a half, those messages stopped. Olivia's final one had been particularly heartfelt, but even that had not been enough to get him to call her back. In the year and a half since, the messages left had been only from Broyles and had been purely work related in nature. From the somewhat shaky sound of Astrid's voice, he doubted her call was like that. "Peter, Olivia's missing." (Peter was pretty sure he stopped breathing.) "She was working on an arms deal case with her friend Lincoln – she never shared many details with me about it – but she's missed her last five check-ins. And Lincoln was found dead in the East River this morning. Peter, she's undercover with the mob and she's not making contact. Walter is talking crazy and not making any sense and the higher ups at the FBI aren't telling us anything. Peter, I know you're angry, but we could really use your help. Please come home."

_End of message. Second message_:

"Peter, where are you?" It was Astrid's voice again, even more shaky than the first time. "It's been over two weeks since I called you. Olivia's still missing. Broyles had to check Walter back into St. Claire's this morning because he was getting violent. They're losing hope that they'll find Olivia alive and Walter isn't handling it well. It's Olivia, Peter. Please help. I hope to see you soon."

_End of message. Third message:_

There were a lot of broken sobs. "It took us two months, Peter, but we found Olivia. She's dead."

_End of new messages._

Peter had dialled Broyles' number before he was even aware that he'd done it.

"Broyles."

"Is it true?"

"Bishop? We could have really used your help three months ago."

"Just tell me if the messages Astrid left me on this phone are true."

"Yes, Mr Bishop. I'm afraid all of them are true. Olivia was killed almost two months ago."

Peter was glad he was already sitting down. Every inch of him felt numb and unpleasantly weightless. He was struck with that hazy feeling of unreality, where the real world felt distinctly fake and at odds with his own normalized perception of it. A reality where Olivia was dead and he hadn't died first trying to protect her from it? Impossible. It was against the very nature of his conception of reality. But, it was, in fact, reality.

He was only vaguely aware that he was calmly asking Broyles questions.

"Who did it?"

"We're not sure. She was working an arms case with one of her FBI friends, and they both went undercover. She did it through another department, so she wasn't allowed to tell me much, but from what I've discovered in the debriefs since it had to do with a dangerous new bio-weapon. When we found her partner, Agent Lincoln Lee, in the East River six months into the op, he looked like he'd been tortured pretty thoroughly. Lesions on the skin, missing fingernails, teeth pulled out, burn marks from electrical shocks and fire. It was a pretty nasty picture."

Peter found he didn't have it within him to care much about a fed he'd never met. There was only one he was concerned with, and that was Olivia.

"What about Olivia? How did you find her?"

The pause before Broyles answered told Peter all he _never_ had wanted to know. However they had found her, it was undoubtedly bad.

"Let's just say that it's evident she put up a fight and they didn't like it. I can't lie, Peter. She was in a bad way, and it's nothing you're ever going to want to see."

"But they still haven't caught the men who did it?"

Peter could feel a rage building inside of him, his mind concocting a million terrible things that could have been done to Olivia's body, each of them more terrible than the last. He wondered how long she had withstood it all before her body succumbed. He felt the rage give way to sickness as he pictured that strong agent – his best friend, someone he had _loved_ – in that kind of pain. Peter knew it would be years before he'd be able to sleep without having nightmares about what Olivia's final days had probably been like.

"No, Mr Bishop. The FBI is leading an inquiry, but so far all our leads have been dead ends. To be honest, there's only so much we can do. Since Lee and Dunham were obviously made before they were killed, we can't risk sending anyone else in. We've already lost two good agents on this case. We can't afford to lose any more. Otherwise, I doubt I could have held Agent Farnsworth back from going in herself."

"Get a file ready. I'm coming in. I still have some contacts in Boston. I'll see what I can do."

"Slow down there, Bishop. You think you can just waltz back into the FBI after three years, after taking a leave of absence from a classified division without telling us how to contact you, and start working cases again?"

"I never said I was working for the FBI. I want to see you, Broyles. And I'll take Astrid's help, if she's offering, but I don't want to see anyone at the FBI. And I sure as hell don't want to see Walter. As far as the government knows, I'm gone and Boston and I are completely divorced. But I need to help. For Olivia. Despite all our problems, I owe her that."

"Glad to hear it, Bishop. Call when you're in the city. I'll see what information I can gather for you."

Broyles hung up the call without a goodbye and Peter placed the phone back in the lockbox. He picked up the picture he had placed face-down before, and for the first time in three years, he allowed himself to stare at it. In it was a capturing of a rare moment of true happiness from his life in Boston. Peter was at the piano, laughing slightly as he played a jazz tune (Gershwin's "Fascinatin' Rhythm," he remembered), and Olivia was seated next to him, a large smile on her face as she laughed at his terrible singing. Astrid was standing on the other side of the piano, stirring up ingredients to a cake that Walter was insisting she make. And Walter was just visible in the background, dissecting a man who had died in whatever gruesome case Broyles had asked them to investigate that week. He usually avoided looking at the image because his past in Boston was now discoloured by Walter's terrible revelation and too-well-hidden secrets. In the early days of his self-imposed exile from Boston, he had often looked at this picture and wondered if he could see Olivia's guilt in her eyes. Did she already know the truth about him when this picture was taken? He hated to think of her lying to him for so long; but he also relished the thought that maybe she had cared too much about him to risk him leaving. Whatever her reasoning had been, he had left. And he had never really regretted that decision until that moment. Because it wasn't until just that second that he really realised what was gone. Olivia Dunham was never going to smile at him again, was never going to look at him the way she did in that photograph. And he had no one to blame but himself. He had never gone back for her, had never called her back after her many early voicemail messages, and had never let her explain why she'd lied to him. And now she was dead, at the hands of people he may already know. He took the photo, folded it up and stuck it in his pants pocket along with the mobile phone. He locked the lockbox and, after grabbing his small suitcase from the hotel closet, he placed the lockbox in the centre and started piling in clothes.

He had a new job to work in Boston, and the sooner he started his research and reconnaissance, the better off he'd be. After three years of running away, he was running home again. He just hoped he still had some legs left to run some more when the case was through.


End file.
